Tori Oakowsky
March 27, 2012
Old South versus New South
In “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, there have been suggestions on the
differences between Old South versus the New South. For example, Miss Emily and her set ways
are to be considered the Old South, while the townspeople and Homer Barron symbolizes the
New South and new different traditions and customs. Even though she (Miss Emily) was “old
fashioned”, did the New South alternate her to agreeing with the “modern days”?
In the early 1900’s , the country folk that have been around for a while are very stubborn
and set in their ways and plan to keep their culture and customs the way that they were raised. As
Miss Emily is going through different and new situations in her life, such as the new
townspeople try and make her pay her taxes, she explains that Colonel Sartoris remitted her taxes
and she keeps claiming, “See Colonel Sartoris”(Faulkner, 76) . Her taxes were remitted a whole
generation ago, which of course, this colonel has been dead for quite some time and new people
had different ideas. For Miss Emily, she still believes that she doesn’t have to pay her taxes, and
refuses to let the New South (such as the new mayor and the aldermen) come against her and
make her pay for bills that she never had to pay for before.
The Old South also could be represented by the house that Miss Emily was currently
living in. The description of her house was shown as, “"It was a big, squarish frame house that
had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies in the heavily
lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been our most select street. But garages
and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the august names of that neighborhood;
only Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton
wagons and the gasoline pumps-an eyesore among the eyesores." (Faulkner, 75) Not only on the
outside did the appearance seem “old-fashioned,” but so did the inside of Miss Emily’s house. It
was said that “The leather was cracked; and when they sat down, a faint dust rose sluggishly
about their thighs, spinning with slow motes in the single sun-ray. On a tarnished gilt easel
before the fireplace stood a crayon portrait of Miss Emily’s father.” (Faulkner, 76)
As for Miss Emily, she was: “A small, fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain
descending to her waist and vanishing her belt, leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold
head. Her skeleton as small and spare; perhaps that was why that would have been merely
plumpness in another was obesity in her. She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in
motionless water, and of that pallid hue. Her eyes, lost in fatty ridges of her face, looked like two
small pieces of coal pressed into a lump of dough as they moved from one face to another while
the visitors stated their errand.” (Faulkner, 76) When comparing both Miss Emily and her house,
it is obvious that both seem refusing to change from their traditions, and both of them seem to be
unkept, neglected and unappreciated. They both were eyesores to the “New South” and planned
on keeping it that way as long as possible.
Miss Emily’s father was a very good symbol of the ways of the Old South. He was the
one in the family that had the horse whip (which symbolizes power and leadership in the family).
He taught Miss Emily when she was younger that “none of the young men were quite good
enough for Miss Emily and such.” (Faulkner, 77) Because Miss Emily’s father had this
impression on her, she never really was able to experience any real relationship with anyone else
except for her father until he died. Her father was the only one that she ever really connected
with and when he died, her world pretty much stopped right then and she couldn’t accept the fact
that he was dead. Although he was her father, the story claims that he robbed her of love,
relationships, and a future. It is said, “We remembered all of the young men her father had driven
away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her,
as people will.” (Faulkner, 77)
In the story, her manservant Tobe was also mentioned who could be represented as from
the past because at this point, the Civil War had just ended and banned slavery from the North
and the South. Tobe must have been the slave in the family since Miss Emily was a young girl
and the family was much more prosperous and wealthy. Because Tobe was the only one who
lived with Miss Emily for so long, the new townspeople looked down at him because in the early
1900’s, the society would have much rathered see Miss Emily with a female slave or servant,
than any male companion that was outside of marriage.
For the New South in comparison to the Old South, there are different symbols that
recognize change and new development in the town of Jefferson. Homer Barron is one of the
biggest symbols of the New South. After the Civil War took place, the northerners won the battle
between them and the south about slavery. When the Northerners won the battle, the southerners
became upset and didn’t want to change that idea of not having slavery, because they claimed
that the plantations needed the help of the slaves especially in the cotton fields. So, when Homer
Barron came to town to do construction, there was some significant changes to the old south.
First of all, when there is going to be any type of construction, there is definitely going to be a
change or renovation. When it was time to pave the sidewalks, there is also significance that the
paving of the sidewalks was also changing the ways of the old south.
After the townsfolk saw Homer Barron and Miss Emily together, they thought that she
was going against the ways of the old south which in the “olden days” would have put Miss
Emily to shame because he (Homer Barron) was of a much lower class than she was. They said,
“Of course a Grierson would not think seriously of a Northerner, a day laborer.” (Faulkner, 78)
The town was the New South because they constantly wanted change, and that is what
they received. The new people that now have moved to Jefferson recently is now known as the
new generation. The little town of Jefferson was given a new judge who presented new rules, a
new group of aldermen that complained terribly to the judge about Miss Emily not paying her
taxes and the horrible odor that was presiding at her house. Also, simple things in the little town
like the new gas station down the street from Miss Emily’s house and the cotton gin that was up
the road from her house were new. Although the town of Jefferson wanted change, they also
admired the stubborn ways of Emily when she died. They seemed to look at her as a
“monument” and everybody respected her in some form or fashion. At Miss Emily’s funeral, the
townspeople claimed, “When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the
men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of
curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old manservant- a combined
gardener and cook- had been seen in the last ten years.” (Faulkner, 75)
In another part of the story, it says, “They held the funeral on the second day, with the
town coming to look at Miss Emily beneath a mass of bought flowers, with the crayon face of
her father musing profoundly above the bier and the ladies sibilant and macabre; and the very old
men- some in their brushed Confederate uniforms- on the porch and the lawn, talking of Miss
Emily as if she had been contemporary of theirs, believing that they had danced with her and
courted her perhaps, confusing time with its mathematical progression, as the old do, to whom all
the past is not a diminishing road but, instead, a huge meadow which no winter ever quite
touches, divided from them now by the narrow bottle-neck of the most recent decade of years.
(Faulkner, 80)
There seemed to be change all around her, but yet she wouldn’t change no matter what
people said or thought about her. To Miss Emily, the old south had more of an effect on her than
the new south. She was basically a rebellion to the new generation, and that was the way she
liked it. No matter how the people of the town tried to change her, it was obvious that nothing
was going to alternate her way of thinking. She was born in a certain society, and she intended
on keeping her old southern traditions in the way she was raised.
Resources:
http://www.womhist.binghamton.edu/index.html
http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~daniel/amlit/reader/south/rose.html
http://www.phd-dissertations.com/topic/a_rose_for_emily_dissertation_thesis.html
(Meyer, The Bedford Introduction to Literature, 2002)